Behind the label: Chinese consumers' trust in food certification and the effect of perceived quality on purchase intention

This study aims to evaluate Chinese consumers' trust in food certification, and incorporates perceived quality as a new construct into the theory of planned behaviour to further analyze their purchase intention of certified food. The study conducted a survey of 844 Chinese consumers in twelve selected cities in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces by stratified sampling regarding their intention to purchase pork. Results from structural equation modelling analysis reveal that the proposed additional construct, i.e. perceived quality, as well as the traditional constructs, i.e. behavioural attitude, perceived behavioural control and subjective norm, have significant impacts on consumers' purchase intention. This paper also suggests that while food labelling serves its function of informing potential consumers about the commodity's quality, Chinese consumers hold different levels of trust in different labels, depending on the food certifying body, and that international bodies receive the highest confidence level. As this phenomenon might hinder the function of the food certification system, it has considerably policy implications. We make a number of recommendations on how the Chinese government can alleviate trust issues among consumers and other stakeholders.